How often do you eat as a family? Breakfast is likely on the run, lunch is with everyone in a different place, but what about dinner? Does your family have at least one meal together each day? If not, here’s why you should make every effort to change that.

Eating together as a family lowers the risk of your child dealing with serious issues. Research shows that children that eat together with their families have less incidences with drugs, bad grades, depression, and eating disorders as they get older.

Portions can be controlled. You choose the size of the plate, dish it up, and be sure they get the right serving of each food group instead of “super-sizing” it through the drive through.

Your dinner table may be the only chance you get to catch up on their day. This is the time to “unplug” and get to know what’s going on it your child’s life.

You can encourage healthier choices. Do not provide options such as chicken nuggets as a back up if your child doesn’t care for salmon, you just might get him to try it to see that he actually does like it. This also helps with providing variety and identifying the healthy foods you may want to offer more frequently. If you offer an option, be sure its equally as healthy as what you planned.

A healthy attitude towards food and having a nice variety at the dinner table will set the stage for later in life when they have to choose what to buy when they grocery shop for the first time as a college freshman.

Dinner together doesn’t have to be home-cooked. If you cannot eat at home, consider dinner out as a family, but keep your choices a good example for your children. This could influence their future choices as well.

Consider letting your children help in creating a menu for the week. This will allow them to experiment with new flavors and be more willing to try foods they “worked hard” to make. Again, this can lead to more healthy choices and get them excited about new foods. The more foods a child enjoys, the easier to plan, the easier to keep the family healthy and avoid obesity.

A happier family eats together! Those that eat together experience less stress and anxiety and are more willing to talk about the daily and big problems.

Hopefully these 8 reasons can help you to set a goal to aim to eat together for dinner at least a few times per week. Family dinners should be held as sacred time together to build on your family unit to set a healthy foundation for years to come.

3 Bean Turkey Chili

Ingredients:

1 lb ground lean turkey (prefer 93/7%)

1 can organic kidney beans (dark is the best)

1 can organic black beans

1 can organic garbanzo beans

1 cup frozen corn (optional)

1 packet Chili seasoning or make your own

1 jar or tomato sauce (Newman's Own is yummy)

Recipe:

Cook the turkey in a large sautee pan (large enough to fit the remaining ingredients), drain the fat. Add the seasoning packet and give a good stir. Then add the full jar of sauce, cans of the drained beans, corn if you desire (still frozen), and let simmer for 20 minutes on low.

I top it with low fat shredded cheese (about a tablespoon), low fat sour cream or Greek yogurt (a teaspoon), and sweet/hot peppers or some Siracha..

Serve it with blue corn tortilla chips to add the color and crunch that kids like!